Monthly archive

The statement by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour that war crimes may have been committed in the Lebanon conflict was deliberately couched in diplomatic terms. Arbour took pains to identify both Israel and Hezbollah as potentially guilty parties. Nevertheless, there was little doubt that her target was Tel Aviv, and her warning that liability for war crimes is not restricted to the military, but extends to politicians who approve their operations was also meant to be heard by Israelâ€™s political backers in Washington and London.

A commercial establishment with small beginnings has today become the first Sri Lankan export company to win four global quality certifications. Yet it is an organization that does not rely too much on advertising, although it is one of Sri Lankaâ€™s three largest tea exporters to the USA.

Recently there was an attempt by the chauvinist groups in the South, to cause a loud cry and agitate against the decision of the Government to facilitate medical treatment to LTTE media spokesman, Daya Master. It is tragic to see some groups that are led by religious clergy, gave leadership to these agitations, in complete violation of the noble teachings of their master. It appears that some of these groups believe that solution to this problem has to be pursued only through war. They seem to believe that in the process people have to be killed or be allowed to die

JeyananthamoorthyMystery deepens on the Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG) attack into the house of Senathirajah Jeyananthamoorthy MP for Batticalao. â€œIt was Godâ€™s providence, I survived yesterday from the deadliest attack,â€œsaid Jeyananthamoorthy in an interview with Tamil Osai, the Tamil radio service of the BBC. Jeyananthamoorthy, his wife, two children and his relatives who were in the house, survived miraculously when on Friday at 9.15 pm, his house came under RPG attack. According to reports, Jeyananthamoorthy, a Member of Parliament for Batticalao escaped unhurt when suspicious terroristâ€™s cadres fired twice with powerful RPG into his house. At the time of the attack, according to reports, the MP and his family members were fast asleep.

Elevation of rural economy, by providing more and more jobs for the rural youth, enhancing the living conditions of the vast rural farmers by providing them a market for their produce at a price is the bitter concoction prescribed by Rangith Page, Deputy Chairman/Managing Director, Cargills Ceylon Ltd whose organization heading for tremendous success in following the prescribed principle. Page was addressing the 4,300 Cargills Family at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium recently celebrating the Cargills Day, an annual event for which all the Cargills and affiliated enterprises were closed to draw the entire workforce to a single point.

The abomination that was Black July would have happened even without the â€˜Four Four Bravoâ€™ operation of the LTTE. The killing of the 13 soldiers was merely the spark which ignited the inferno of communal violence; the firewood of fear and the fuel of hatred were already in place, created by the anti-Tamil hysteria which had undermined the political sense and collective sanity of the South. The image of the Tamil â€˜enemyâ€™ had permeated every level of Sinhala society, eroding human civility and moral responsibility. By 1983, fear, contempt and hatred, caused by the menace of the â€˜hadi and para demalaâ€™, had made the Sinhala South ready, willing and able to inflict wholesale and limitless violence on Tamils, for simply being Tamils. Without this deliberately constructed psychological condition, the Black July would not have happened, even with the killing of the 13 soldiers.